experiencing first time parenthood in stereo

Tag: healthy

So it’s six weeks into my no-diet healthy lifestyle. And drum-roll please….. I’ve lost a grand total of 9lbs.

I’m not going to be disappearing through the grating just yet (!) and it’s not super rapid weightloss. BUT I’m not on a diet. I’m not counting calories. I’m not working out how many points/syns are in every morsel of food I eat. I’m just making healthier choices, eating when I’m hungry and avoiding snacks when I’m not. And I am losing weight. This feels like a good equation.

We’ve had a few beautiful days recently which has helped up my activity levels. Frosty and calm with glorious blue skies and sunshine. It feels like Spring is on its way and I can’t wait! It’s so much more tempting to head out for big long walks when you know that you’re not going to be wet and mushy after 10 minutes. I get plenty of walking in everyday when I’m looking after the boys but we don’t tend to do quite so much on winter weekends. So as Spring approaches, I’m looking forward to some more active weekends and hopefully a few beautiful beach walks.

My SlimPod Journey

Quick reminder – I’m testing the SlimPod Gold Programme from Thinking Slimmer. It’s a 9 minute podcast which you listen to every day – it uses unconscious persuasion to help change the way you think about yourself and what you eat. Thinking Slimmer say this about the SlimPod:

“Day by day it retrains your brain so you instinctively make healthier choices, want to eat less and move more – perfect for lasting weight loss.”

I’ve now been listening to the SlimPod every evening for 6 weeks. It’s so hard to quantify what effect it’s having on my healthy living intentions. Am I making healthier choices because I’ve made up my mind to do it? Or because my thinking pattern is being influenced unconsciously by the SlimPod? It’s impossible to know. My husband remains sceptical.

I am still undecided. What I do know is:

• I’m losing weight but I’m not dieting

• I feel positive that I can and will continue to do so

• I find the SlimPod and the complementary ChillPod and FitPod very relaxing to listen to

I should also add. Despite Mr C’s scepticism, he is still listening and he has lost 5lbs!

This is no quick-fix solution. The challenge for me is to keep living healthily. (With the odd blip.) And more importantly, not to not be seduced by the next super-dooper faddy diet that I read about.

No more weighing for me for another 6 weeks. But I’ll be back then to update on my progress!

I’m going to be using the hashtag #missionhealthymum on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest to track my progress, so come join me if you are also on a mission to lose the mummy tummy in 2016.

**I have been given complementary access to the SlimPod programme from Thinking Slimmer. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. This blog posts contains affiliate links to Thinking Slimmer Products. This means that If you buy a product through this link, I get paid a commission but the product does not cost you any more**

Today I stopped dieting. Twenty-two years later and my 12 year old slightly pudgy body has morphed into a mass of wobbly bits. I am determined to be fitter and healthier and my journey starts today.

I have tried every diet known to man –some of them for half a day, some for months and a few on and off for years. Some with success and some without. I have lost a lot of weight along the way but have put every ounce back on again and added a few stone to boot. This pattern of on and off dieting really isn’t working.

It takes me a few weeks to ‘build up’ the mental energy and commitment to start each new diet and each time, I spend the in-between weeks eating way too much. I justify it with thoughts of how much I will lose once I start this next new diet. This new diet that will transform my body and mean that I never need to count calories/syns/points again. Honestly, who am I trying to kid?

I have lost significant amounts of weight before but I never manage to keep it off. I just settle back into old eating habits. I love good food and enjoy cooking and baking. I don’t eat rubbish – I never buy ready meals and we tend to eat tasty, fresh, relatively healthy meals. The trouble is we simply eat more of them than we actually need. I also have a very sweet tooth and I love nothing more than a coffee and a yummy traybake. (Traybakes or sticky buns are something that we Northern Irishers are very good at. Too good at.)

Having two babies at once hasn’t helped matters. I never used to carry weight on my tummy and all of a sudden, I have a serious mummy tummy. A twin mummy tummy. It needs to go.

I’ve decided that the only way to stop this mania is to stop dieting forever. No more see-sawing between 500 calorie a day hell and eating far too much rubbish. No more ‘being good’ today and falling off the wagon tomorrow. I’m just going to focus on eating good, nutritious food that I enjoy, when I’m hungry and getting out walking as much as possible. Sounds simple. And sensible. Doesn’t it?

My challenge is to live by the ‘everything in moderation’ mantra. Something my mum, in her wisdom (and size 10 jeans) has been advocating for years.

My journey starts right here, right now. I’m going to weigh and measure myself this morning and then every 4 weeks from here on in. Mr C is going to join me on my healthy mission. So maybe I’ll report back on both of us!

I’m also going to be trying out the SlimPod from Thinking Slimmer – I’m hoping that it will complement my efforts to get healthy and shed my excess pounds. I really really want to avoid the lure of a faddy new diet that inevitably fails. I think the SlimPod sounds like a step in a new and more positive direction. From what I’ve read about it, it addresses the link between how we think about food and what we eat instead of focusing on long lists of food that you can and cannot eat.

Thinking Slimmer describe the Slim Pod as:

“…a nine-minute podcast which transforms the way you feel about food and yourself – and it breaks the perpetual diet-fail cycle. Day by day it retrains your brain so you instinctively make healthier choices, want to eat less and move more – perfect for lasting weight loss.”

It’s a big claim. And I really hope it works for me!

I’m going to be using the hashtag #missionhealthymum on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest to track my progress, so come join me if you are also on a mission to lose the mummy tummy in 2016.

The question is – am I the oddity or do diets work for anyone?

**I have been given complementary access to the SlimPod programme from Thinking Slimmer. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.**